{"slug": "grouptom-bench-benchmarking-group-theory-of-mind-and-nonlinear-social-emergence", "title": "GroupToM-Bench: Benchmarking Group Theory of Mind and Nonlinear Social Emergence in MLLMs", "summary": "Multimodal large language models fail to infer how individual mental states interact and crystallize into group-level outcomes, according to a new benchmark called GroupToM-Bench. The benchmark, the first for group-level Theory of Mind, reveals a gap between current models and human baselines in processing social structures and non-linear collective dynamics.", "body_md": "arXiv:2606.04184v1 Announce Type: new\nAbstract: True general intelligence requires not only a model of the physical world but also a social world model: the capacity to infer how individual mental states interact and crystallize into group-level outcomes. Despite notable progress in individual-level Theory of Mind (ToM) reasoning, existing multimodal large language models fail at this broader task. Collective behavior emerges non-linearly from social tensions, conformity dynamics, and structural constraints, meaning it cannot be recovered by merely summing individual intentions. We present GroupToM-Bench, the first multimodal benchmark for group-level ToM, built around a causal chain spanning micro-level BDI states (belief, desire, intention), meso-level group tension and structural constraints, and macro-level outcome prediction and mechanistic attribution. To probe this full arc, we develop a seven-level cognitive audit framework. Experiments reveal a gap between current models and human baselines, highlighting a failure to process social structures and non-linear collective dynamics.", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/grouptom-bench-benchmarking-group-theory-of-mind-and-nonlinear-social-emergence", "canonical_source": "https://arxiv.org/abs/2606.04184", "published_at": "2026-06-04 04:00:00+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-06-04 04:19:21.386034+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["artificial-intelligence", "machine-learning", "large-language-models", "ai-research", "ai-ethics"], "entities": ["GroupToM-Bench", "Theory of Mind", "MLLMs"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/grouptom-bench-benchmarking-group-theory-of-mind-and-nonlinear-social-emergence", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/grouptom-bench-benchmarking-group-theory-of-mind-and-nonlinear-social-emergence.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/grouptom-bench-benchmarking-group-theory-of-mind-and-nonlinear-social-emergence.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/grouptom-bench-benchmarking-group-theory-of-mind-and-nonlinear-social-emergence.jsonld"}}